On Friday, the IRS announced that it is delaying the retirement of
the Disclosure Authorization (DA) and Electronic Account Resolution
(EAR) electronic services for three weeks (e-News for Tax
Professionals, No. 2013-32 (8/9/13)). They were scheduled to be
suspended on Aug. 11, but instead they will be available until Sept. 2
(see IRS
webpage). The IRS’s plan to close down the two e-services has
received vehement responses from the practitioner community, including
the AICPA’s official comment letter to the IRS objecting to the
closure (see “AICPA
Pushes Back on IRS e-Services Closures”).

Despite the reaction from tax preparers, the IRS insists in its
announcement that the services will be discontinued on Sept. 2,
coinciding with its transition to a new web portal, which will not
include the DA or EAR services. The IRS claims that it has increased
the number of employees who process DAs and that it has improved work
processes to significantly shorten the current 10-day processing time.

As a reminder, the IRS notes that, after Sept. 2, tax practitioners
will have to complete Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration
of Representative, or Form 8821, Tax Information
Authorization, and mail or fax the form to the appropriate IRS
location. Afterward, taxpayers are asked to wait four days for the
authorization to be processed before requesting a
transcript.

Practitioners who used EAR are asked to now
call the Practitioner Priority Service at 1-866-860-4259 to resolve
account-related issues. The IRS also said that it is exploring an
improved electronic solution for both the DA and EAR for the future.

TAX NEWS

President Barack Obama signed legislation that retroactively extended more than 50 expired tax provisions for 2014, allowing taxpayers to take advantage of a host of tax incentives during this filing season.

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